Larry Kudlow:
You’ve got to hand it to Hillary Clinton and her team. Their message discipline is awesome — at least in terms of taxes. It reminds me of the orderly march of the Chinese Red Army on the way to battle.
Here’s the latest: The Bush tax cuts were responsible for the financial meltdown and recession of 2008-09. That’s a new low for Hillarynomics.
In last week’s debate, Hillary said, “Trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in in 2008 and 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn’t worked.”
Okay. So George W. Bush in 2003 got a modest reduction in the top income-tax rate, with bigger reductions in the tax rates on capital gains and dividends. And this caused the financial crisis?
How is virtually unknowable.
My pal Jim Pethokoukis, no Trump supporter, put it like this: “wouldn’t the George W. Bush tax cuts — most of which President Obama extended — have stimulated demand and/or improved supply-side incentives to work, save, and invest?”
Pethokoukis cited an AEI study on inequality that found “strong evidence linking credit booms to banking crises, but no evidence that rising income concentration was a significant determinant of credit booms.” He also pointed out that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report assigns blame to banks, regulators, government agencies, and credit raters.
I would add to this list of culprits a boom-and-bust Federal Reserve policy, where interest rates were held too low for too long. And let’s add federal housing mandates to virtually eliminate income and job qualifications for loans, as well as highly over-leveraged bank mortgage loans and derivatives.
But not the Bush tax cuts.
Back to Hillary’s Red Army. In recent debates with pro-Hillary economists, several of whom are good friends, I heard the same accusations: Bush and his so-called tax cuts for the rich are to blame.
I challenged one of these Hillary supporters to find me an example where across-the-board tax increases generated economic growth. Have we ever taxed our way into prosperity? Never. This particular Hillary defender acknowledged that across-the-board tax hikes would put a stop to prosperity. But he argued that’s not her plan.
Let me pull out my list of Hillary tax hikes: a $350 billion income-tax increase in the form of a 28 percent cap on itemized deductions (without lowering personal tax rates); a more than $400 billion “fairness” tax hike in the form of a 4 percent surcharge on high-end earners; and the “Buffet rule,” which would establish a 30 percent minimum tax on earners with adjusted gross incomes over $1 million.
it is looking like Trump has not paid a dime in Federal tax in 20 years during that time the Cons refer to as “our golden years” taxes were higher and the USA was doing great
when a company has the choice of either paying taxes or reinvesting that money in infrastrucure or higher wages to retain human resources what do YOU think a company would do?
Higher taxe force comanies to reinvest
Thats what all demac-RATS do TAX AND SPEND,TAX AND SPEND TAX AND SPEND someone take a 25000 volt cattle prod to that stupid jackass
It has been shown that not only does raising taxes curtail economic growth, but if every penny of income was confiscated from every earner, it would not be adequate to pay for the spending the liberals intend.
Spending must be cut to what the Constitution permits and taxes reduced to allow for economic growth.
Trump’s released taxes show what happens when growth is stopped; he suffered a $916 million loss in 1995 which led to a loss of tax revenue to the nation for years to come. Obama’s harsh regulation and taxation has stifled business growth and chased businesses overseas, yet liberals cannot give up their campaign of punishing the prosperous to lure their dependent minions to vote for them.
@john: When you find that he did something illegal or unethical (like taking a million dollar tax deduction for making charitable contributions… to yourself, as Hillary did), get back to us.
What we are talking about here is “income” taxes. Note, that if one has no income, one pays no taxes. Furthermore, if one has negative income, one takes deductions.
But, what’s facts to a liberal?
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
I have to agree here. from all reports, Trump used LEGAL tax loopholes! If I was in his shoes, me and every business man worth his salt would do the same.
As for the liberals whose panties are all in a bunch over this, you know the Gregs and Johns of the world, start crying to me when you can bring yourself to acknowledge that your sorry assed rich leaders, Hollywood elite and so forth are and have been using and will continue to use the tax code to their advantage as Trump and others have, I would suggest you zip it!
The hypocrisy is beyond me and what’s worse, the mind dead moronic electorate actually believes this kind of tripe
Just a followup as to the putrid hypocrisy shown by the mind dead liberal shills I found on Drudge. This speaks for itself:
But the Times itself has “avoided” paying taxes — in 2014, for example.
As Forbes noted at the time:
… for tax year 2014, The New York Times paid no taxes and got an income tax refund of $3.5 million even though they had a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in 2014. In other words, their post-tax profit was higher than their pre-tax profit. The explanation in their 2014 annual report is, “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” If you don’t think it took fancy accountants and tax lawyers to make that happen, read the statement again.
@joetote: Warren Buffet owes (as in OWES) more than a billion in taxes. The entire on-air staff of MSNBC have been caught dodging taxes they OWE. The estimable Al Sharpton, adviser to the President, Hillary and Bernie, frequent visitor to the White House, owes almost $5 million in state, local and income taxes. Both Buffett and Soros have taken the necessary steps to dodge any inheritance taxes their heirs would incur. Hillary dodged taxes on $1 million by making charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Kerry bought a yacht and attempted to dodge the taxes owed on it. Gore attempted to dodge taxes he would owe on the sale of his failed network to al Jazeera.
None of this is an issue for liberals. It only bothers them if a Romney or Trump uses the tax codes as written.
You hilariously spewed, “it is looking like Trump has not paid a dime in Federal tax in 20 years…”
Where’d you pull that gem out of?
And even if he didn’t, are you alleging he did something illegal?
Finally, you are forgetting the 100s of millions he undoubtedly paid in property taxes, state income taxes, various local taxes, used fees, workman’s comp… But they don’t count right? HAHAHA
@john:
“Higher taxe force comanies to reinvest” Your exact words. Not only spelled wrong but economically illiterate.
Higher taxes take money from companies which means they have less to reinvest. Doh.
no you see there are profits and pretax profits. You can reduce your pre tax profits by reinvesting that will give you a lower tax bill.
Would anyone here prefer to have the wealthy pay higher taxes like they did in the 80s back when america was “great”?